The third-quarter profits of major U.S. listed companies are projected to surge by roughly 30% compared to the same period last year. However, a vast majority of this profit growth has been heavily concentrated in a handful of AI-related corporations, while the share of income going to workers in the U.S. economy has dropped to a historic low.

U.S. online media outlet Axios reported on the 13th (local time), citing data from financial information firm FactSet and investment bank Goldman Sachs, that American companies are reaping record-sharding profits. While this strong corporate performance is supporting the stock market, public dissatisfaction with the economy shows little sign of subsiding.

According to FactSet, the combined third-quarter profits of the S&P 500—comprising 500 major U.S. publicly traded companies—are expected to jump 29.6% year-over-year. The third-quarter earnings season has kicked off in earnest, led by major financial institutions like JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs.

At the center of this profit growth is the artificial intelligence (AI) industry. Goldman Sachs forecasts that AI infrastructure-related stocks will account for more than half of the total profit growth for the S&P 500.

Ben Snyder, a senior U.S. equity analyst at Goldman Sachs, projected that more than two-thirds of the S&P 500's third-quarter profit growth will come from just 10 stocks. This means that while overall profits across all 500 companies are rising sharply, the gains are heavily skewed toward a select few.

Notably, just two companies—U.S. memory chip maker Micron Technology and AI chip titan NVIDIA—are estimated to account for over one-third of the entire S&P 500 profit growth.

This concentration of profits was also evident in the second quarter. At the time, S&P 500 profits soared by roughly 50% year-over-year. However, that figure included massive valuation gains driven by increases in the value of tech company stakes held by Amazon and Google's parent company, Alphabet.

Amazon booked accounting gains exceeding $50 billion (approx. 70 trillion KRW) thanks to the rising valuation of AI startup Anthropic. These non-operating valuation gains differ in nature from operating profits earned through selling goods or services.

Even excluding these valuation gains, U.S. major corporate earnings showed robust momentum, according to Axios. The analysis indicates that expanding AI investments are driving up profits across related industries, including semiconductors and data centers.

The sharp spike in corporate profits was not limited to publicly traded large enterprises. Economy-wide statistics for the U.S. also showed that after-tax corporate profits in the second quarter increased by 18.2% compared to the previous year.

The share of after-tax profits generated from companies' productive activities hit historically high levels. This metric, which adjusts for inventory valuation and capital consumption, targets domestic corporate profits within the U.S. and excludes earnings generated overseas.

Conversely, the share of income going to workers in the U.S. economy has fallen to an all-time low. While corporate earnings are growing exponentially, the portion of overall economic income captured by workers has diminished.

The labor share of income refers to the proportion of income generated across the economy that workers receive in the form of wages and benefits. A decline in this ratio does not necessarily mean workers' wages shrank outright, but rather that the share of total economic income claimed by labor has decreased.

Axios analyzed that the gap between companies' record profits and the shrinking share going to labor could be one of the underlying reasons why Americans evaluate current economic conditions negatively. The skepticism with which many Americans view the AI investment boom—which brings massive profits to corporations—may also be tied to this income distribution structure, the report pointed out.

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